Dreamliner’s bugs are part of revolutionary design

Thursday

Jan 17, 2013 at 12:01 AMJan 17, 2013 at 4:13 PM

The news has been a buzz kill for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, the revolutionary new jet with billions of dollars in ties to Rockford’s aerospace cluster. Two Japanese airlines have grounded the 787 for safety checks. But in the aerospace industry, this is the nature of revolution.

Brian Leaf

ROCKFORD — The news has been a buzz kill for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, the revolutionary new jet with billions of dollars in ties to Rockford’s aerospace cluster. Two Japanese airlines have grounded the 787 for safety checks.
But in the aerospace industry, this is the nature of revolution.
Consider the Boeing 747, which launched the era of big passenger planes. On Jan. 21, 1970, a London-bound jumbo jet named Clipper Young America was full of people who paid $375 to fly from New York on the 747’s inaugural passenger flight.
The Pan Am jet never left the runway.
An engine overheated and the plane returned to the terminal. Six hours later, another 747, Clipper Victor, made the flight and history, according to authors Guy Norris and Mark Wagner in “Boeing 747: Design and Development since 1969.”
The 747 continued to have engine issues after its launch, but they were eventually solved and the plane became a long haul workhorse for airlines and a profit center for Boeing. The aviation industry is convinced that the 787’s problems today are also destined to become historical footnotes.
“They’re annoying little bugs that will get straightened away in a relatively short period,” said Fred Young, CEO of Forest City Gear in Roscoe, a private pilot whose company makes parts used on most Boeing planes.
“Now, they’ve done their best to test these things out. I’m fairly sure that there’s so much redundancy in the plane that they’re safe to fly on.”
Wednesday’s grounding by Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airlines came after reports of a burning smell, a cockpit warning of battery trouble and an emergency landing.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a review of the 787 after a fire in a battery and fuel leak last week in Boston.
That made news in Rockford, where dozens of companies and thousands of workers helped create the Dreamliner, the first jet to be made of carbon fiber and the first that relies more on electrical systems and less on mechanical systems, compared with older planes.
The plane uses 20 percent less fuel.
United Technologies Aerospace Systems, the largest contractor with nine systems on the 787, invested $50 million in a simulation lab in Rockford to test and integrate systems on the plane. It expects to generate revenues of $15 billion over the life of the plane.
UTAS referred comment on the 787 to Boeing, saying only that its “systems are designed with several redundancies to ensure safety and we look forward to assist in any effort to resolve in-service issues.”
A Boeing spokesperson did not respond to a call or email Wednesday.
Brian Leaf: 815-987-1343; bleaf@rrstar.com; @B_Leaf